Tony Romo hasn’t announced a game yet, but his broadcasting career is off to a pretty good start considering the background story he revealed on The MMQB.
When Romo went undrafted in 2003, the Cardinals offered more money than the Cowboys.
“The money … Arizona, I believe, offered the most, probably around $20,000 or $25,000, which was like being rich at that time, ” Romo said. “Denver came in and they were like 15 to 20, but they also had Mike Shanahan who I had strong respect for, and obviously the Cowboys came in. It was Mike Shanahan on one side and then Bill Parcells on the other. Sean would call in and then eventually he passed the phone to Jerry (Jones), so you went through the whole gamut.”
Romo settled for $10,000 to go to the Cowboys. Both Sean Payton, who was then the Cowboys quarterbacks coach, and Mike Shanahan were former Eastern Illinois quarterbacks, just like Romo.
Romo got the Cowboys’ attention at the combine. No, he didn’t test at the combine. His job was to throw the passes to the wide receivers in their drills. So before the improbable journey from going undrafted to having a 13-year NFL career, Romo also beat long odds just to go from combine lackey to an NFL camp.
As for the teams Romo spurned, perhaps the Broncos would have been better than a perennial .500 team if they had him instead of Jay Cutler and Kyle Orton between 2007 and 2009. The Cardinals had Kurt Warner when they lost to the Steelers in Super Bowl XLIII, but the biggest “what-if” nugget from this revelation involves the 2014 season.
That was Romo’s last healthy season and he led the Cowboys to a 12-4 record. He threw 34 touchdown passes and nine interceptions and completed a career-high 69.9 percent of his passes. The Cardinals got to 11-5 despite losing both Carson Palmer and Drew Stanton to injuries. They were down to Ryan Lindley in the playoffs and fell at Carolina 27-16 in the wild-card round.
The Cardinals started that season 7-1 and with Romo they might have been able to finish it better and avoid having to play in the wild-card round. It’s not like they didn’t try to get Romo 11 years earlier.
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